Cardigan is a small town of 4,000 good people. 400 of them used to make jeans. They made 35,000 pairs a week. For three decades.

Then one day the factory closed. It left town. But all that skill and knowhow remained. Without any way of showing the world what they could do.

That’s why we have started The Hiut Denim Company. To bring manufacturing back home. To use all that skill on our doorstep. And to breathe new life into our town.

As one of the Grand Masters said to us when we were interviewing: “This is what I know how to do. This is what I do best.” We just sat there thinking we have to make this work. So yes, our town is going to make jeans again.

This is is a 10-year project. Each year we will meet back up at the farm. We will spend the week repairing the farm, catching up with the year’s events, eat some great food, and have some fun. And at the same time take photographs for the next year book. There will be years where some people can’t make it. And we will invite some new people along too. It will serve as an interesting marker in time. And bit by bit, the farm will find a new purpose again. Whatever that may be.

The first known mention of a dwelling on the farm was in 1201. A little before the internet and Google. Its more recent history has been as a dairy farm.

Maybe its future will lie in becoming a farm that grows people rather than food.
A Do School. A place where you learn how to start businesses of the future.

Lime is mildly antiseptic so it is still used in agricultural buildings prior to lambing, for example, to help ‘cleanse’ the internal environment. Lime has been used for nearly 3,000 years. It was used for the Pantheon in Rome, the Great Wall of China, the aquaduct in Niemes, France 18AD (still waterproof). A quarter of all houses in Wales are built and plastered with lime mortar.

Lime render

Big Ed

They say a man can be judged by the tools he uses. Well, here I look at my bucket of tools with which I could erect a dwelling, and wonder.

There is my Stabila level for accuracy; Marshaltown trowel for balance; and last, but not least, my versatile Estwing brick hammer, with which I can cut and dress bricks.

I was asked to pick my best tool, but they are all the best of their kind. You choose.

Builder by day. Town oracle by night. In his day Big Ed was Cardigan rugby club captain. And by all accounts should have played for Wales. He has no twitter account, but has secretly confessed to having a Kindle. And loving it.